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Cumani Bellatores in the Second Bulgarian State (1186–1396)

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Cumani Bellatores in the Second Bulgarian State (1186–1396) CUMANI BELLATORES IN THE SECOND BULGARIAN STATE (1186–1396) Alexandar Nikolov In his famous work La Civilisation de l’Occident médieval 1 Jacques le Goff quotes the classical formula of the tripartite division of medieval society—oratores, bellatores, laboratores—which is found in the poem of Bishop Adalberon of Lens (circa 1020), dedicated to Robert the Pious, king of France. The layer of bellatores represented the military aristocratic elite, often descendants of groups of warlike migrants or mercenaries. In the region of Central Eastern, and especially Southeastern, Europe migrants frequently filled the role of this warlike and skillful military elite from the Eurasian East. In certain cases, such medieval Hungary and Bulgaria, these migrants were able to create stable state formations which lasted for centuries and enabled a successful synthesis between the tradition of the local sedentary population and newly settled Eurasian nomads.2 The aim of this article is to find where and how a specific nomadic group, the Cumans, were integrated and assimilated into a sedentary society on the Lower Danube, the so-called Second Bulgarian State (from the end of the twelfth to the end of the fourteenth century). In my opinion this topic still has not been well enough researched and clarified. The Cumans (also called the Kipchaks) formed the last large wave of north Turkic nomads who followed the centuries-long road from Inner Asia to the Pontic steppe region of Eastern Europe. They appeared in the lands north of the Black Sea around the middle of the eleventh century, slowly pushing their Pecheneg and Ghuzz relatives westwards. Thus, the Cumans (Kipchaks) played a significant role in the development of a broad region from the end of the eleventh century until the Mongol conquest of Eastern Europe and the subsequent Mongol attack on Central Eastern Europe and the Balkans.3 Even 1 Jacques Le Goff, La Civilisation de l’Occident médieval (Paris: Editions Flammarion, 1997), first published in 1965. Quoted from the Bulgarian translation: Civilizacijata na srednovekovnija Zapad (Sofia: Agata-A, 1998), 299. 2 On the statehood of Eurasian nomads see Anatoly M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World (Cambridge University Press, 1984), 233–263. 3 See for detailed accounts: András Pálóczi-Horváth, Pechenegs, Cumans, Iasians (Budapest: Corvina, 1989), 7–27,39–54 (hereafter Pálóczi-Horváth, Pechenegs); Peter Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples: Ethnogensis and State-Formation in Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia and the Middle East (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 223 Alexandar Nikolov later, after the Mongol conquest of the Pontic area and the foundation of the Golden Horde, they continued to be the bulk of the population of this western Mongol state. In both Western and Oriental sources one finds names like Cumania and Desht-i-Kipchak as synonyms for this Mongol state.4 The military skills of the Cumans made them widely popular. Many Cumanic mercenaries were hired in the Russian principalities, where they merged with the local political and military elites. Such a case also happened in Egypt, ruled by the Kipchak dynasty of the Kalavunids, which had its origin in the Mamluk guard, recruited widely from the Pontic region through the slave trade.5 In this period (the end of the twelfth through the fourteenth century), Central Eastern Europe and the Balkans continued to develop as a border region between sedentary European societies in their Latin or Slavo-Byzantine modifications and the turbulent world of nomadic Eurasia. Thus, the Hungarian Kingdom and the Byzantine Empire were forced to develop a specific policy towards the migrants from the East, which could not be restricted to purely military countermeasures. They had to deal with groups attempting to penetrate the borders of the Latin or the Byzantine world, not only with predatory goals, but often to obtain new homelands and protection.6 Hungary used different approaches in dealing with its nomadic neighbors and the groups which tried to settle within the borders of the kingdom. In order to prevent a new honfoglalás (“landtaking”) in the Carpathian basin, the Hungarian state skillfully defended its borders with the sword and the cross. The country slowly developed the image of a propugnaculum fidei catholicae against schismatics and pagans from the East, nevertheless keeping in contact with these areas. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Hungarian Kingdom 1992), 270–77; László Rásonyi, Les Turcs non-islamisés en Occident (Pécenégues, Ouzes et Qipchaqs) et leurs rapports avec les Hongrois (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1970); Svetlana Pletneva, Polovtsy (The Polovtsians) (Moscow: Nauka, 1990). 4 For more details see German Fedorov-Davydov, Kochevniki Vostochnoj Evropi pod vlastju zolotoordinskich hanov (The nomads of Eastern Europe under the rule of the Golden Horda khans) (Moscow: Nauka, 1966); Bertold Spuler, Die Goldene Horde. Die Mongolen in Russland. (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1965). 5 Peter M. Holt, The Age of the Crusades. The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517. (London: Addison Wesley Longman, 1986). 6 Paul Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 80–117 (hereafter: Stephenson. Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier). 224 Cumani Bellatores in the Second Bulgarian State (1186–1396) recruited small groups of migrating nomads as auxiliary troops, described as Hilfsvölker und Grenzwächter in the famous book of Hansgerd Göckenjan.7 The development of mendicant, mostly Dominican, missions at the beginning of the thirteenth century added another aspect to this policy. Thus, a Cumanic bishopric was established in the town of Milkó, aimed at extending the Hungarian influence further east, deep into the problematic Pontic steppe region.8 This can probably be regarded as an attempt to contribute to the creation of a buffer “Mixobarbarian” society along the eastern borders of the Latin world. On the one hand it would prevent direct contact with the dangers of the Eurasian world and on the other hand facilitate cultural and economic contacts between eastern Central Europe and the steppe region. The Mongol explosion, however, rapidly changed the situation. Hungary was forced to find a way to integrate and assimilate a large mass of Cumanic refugees. This process had ended more or less successfully by the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century through the Christianization, seden- tarization, and assimilation of the Cumans. They became an integral part of the military structure of the Hungarian Kingdom and their clan elite gradually became part of the Hungarian aristocracy. Nevertheless, the Cumans were not able to become the main actors in the political development of the kingdom. They were finally forced to accept strict conditions, put into specific legislation known as Articuli Cumanorum, and to abandon to a great extent their previous way of life—a process recently described in detail by Nora Berend in her famous book At the Gate of Christendom.9 In the first decades of the eleventh century, the mighty Byzantine Empire of the Macedonian dynasty found itself in the situation of the famous King Pyrrhus of Epirus after his victories over the Romans. Its rival in the Balkans, Bulgaria, was totally destroyed, but several decades after the glorious victory of Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer, the empire again had to deal directly with Eurasian 7 Hansgerd Göckenjan, Hilfsvölker und Grenzwächter im mittelalterlichen Ungarn (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1972). 8 Nikolaus Pfeiffer, Die ungarische Dominikanerordensprovinz von ihrer Gründung bis zur Tatarenverwüstung 1241–1242. (Zürich: Gebr. Leemann, 1913); Ioan Ferenţ, Cumani şi episcopia lor. (The Cumans and their Bishoprics) (Blaj: Tipografia seminarului Teologic Greco-Catolic, 1933); Vladimir Pashuto, “Poloveckoje episkopstvo” (The Polovtsian Bishoprics), in: Ost und West in der Geschichte des Denkens und der kulturellen Beziehungen. Festschrift für Eduard Winter zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. W. Steinitz and others, 33–40 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1966). 9 Nora Berend, At The Gate of Christendom. Jews, Muslims and “Pagans” in Medieval Hungary, c.1000–c. 1300. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 68–74 (hereafter: Berend, At the Gate). 225 Alexandar Nikolov nomads migrating into the area of the Lower Danube. These new migrants created specific new problems in this area for the weakened Byzantine administration.10 In her article “Byzantine Concepts of the Foreigner: The Case of the Nomads,” Hélène Ahrweiler11 presents the mechanisms of integration and assimilation of the nomadic migrants and captives in Byzantium. She describes the complicated perception of “otherness” in the Byzantine tradition, dating back to late antiquity and the Roman and Hellenic past. In a multiethnic and multicultural society such as Byzantium, there was a broad variety of terms and attitudes towards the “Other.” At the same time one can see flexible mechanisms of assimilation and integration of various ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities based on a highly elaborated legislative system. On the scale of “otherness,” however, nomads and infidels occupied the lower parts. To quote Ahrweiler again: “The terms barbaros and ‘nomad’ had resonance for Byzantines as key words to describe a quintessential cultural otherness.”12 Nevertheless, especially in the Balkans, the Byzantines had to deal with vast groups
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